Supermarkets, home centers, and other retail establishments, may have temporary display racks, display units, or stands used to display products or fungible goods such as food products, cleaning products, health products, hardware products, and other merchandise. Some racks of this type are typically constructed from permanent display materials such as wood, metal, and plastics. These displays are fairly costly to manufacture and ship, making them expensive to purchase and to deploy through Direct Store Delivery (DSD) systems. Because these displays are typically shipped in an unassembled form, assembly generally requires substantial labor and use of tools to erect these displays at the point of sale. Further, these displays are not easily recyclable and, therefore, are rarely recycled, instead ending up in landfills. Other display racks are made wholly or predominantly from corrugated paperboard on which advertising graphics are printed. In many instances, these display stands are produced with a combination of cardboard and internal metal supports that are complicated to put together. Furthermore, the merchants may not fill the temporary display racks with the appropriate items for the intended marketing campaign or may not place the products in the correct location on the shelves. As such, it is common for the temporary display racks to be put together offsite, filled with product, and then shipped to the retail establishment. Shipping in this manner induces wear and tear and sometimes causes damage to the temporary display before it even reaches the merchant. Also, the product being carried may be damaged or leak during shipment. Furthermore, this is a costly and inefficient way of shipping the product and the temporary display rack. Additionally, the product manufacturer or consumer package good company running the marketing campaign does not know when (or even if) the merchant places the temporary display in the retail establishment and activates the campaign.
Additionally, when display racks are made wholly or predominantly from corrugated paperboard, a display rack of the type noted above tends to wick water from its lower edges so as to lose its structural integrity when a floor on which the display rack is standing is cleaned. Also, such a display rack tends to damage easily at its lower edges if struck (e.g., by a cleaning appliance, person, shopping cart, or a child's toy). In some instances, the temporary display rack may carry as much as one hundred fifty pounds of displayed merchandise. Consequently, it can be very difficult to push, pull, or turn the display rack carrying displayed merchandise without stressing its lower edges and risking structural integrity damage.
It would be advantageous to provide a mechanism and method for providing a temporary display rack that overcomes the limitations discussed above.